"Actuate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dowry, which I had taken in compensation of a heart. Why was I not more honest, or am I not less so? It would have cost my poor old uncle no pangs to accept Blanche's fortune whencesoever it came; he can't even understand, he is bitterly indignant, heart-stricken, almost, at the scruples which actuate me in refusing it. I dissatisfy everybody. A maimed, weak, imperfect wretch, it seems as if I am unequal to any fortune. I neither make myself nor any one connected with me happy. What prospect is there ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the seventeenth century witnessed a higher order of travellers, who, from such a mixture of motives as might actuate either a pilgrim or an antiquary, undertook the perilous tour of the Holy Land. Among these, one of the most distinguished was George Sandys, who commenced his peregrinations in the year 1610. He was succeeded by Doubdan, Cheron, Thevenot, Gonzales, Morison, Maundrell, ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... frequently guide and direct the affections; and men may become more attached to the country of their principles than to the country of their birth. What I have stated here is only to mark the spirit which seems to me, though in somewhat different ways, to actuate our great party-leaders, and to trace this first pattern of a negotiation to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... three great tenets of a Mason's profession, are Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth. And it is true that a Brotherly affection and kindness should govern us in all our intercourse and relations with our brethren; and a generous and liberal philanthropy actuate us in regard to all men. To relieve the distressed is peculiarly the duty of Masons—a sacred duty, not to be omitted, neglected, or coldly or inefficiently complied with. It is also most true, that Truth is a Divine attribute and the foundation of every ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... end that the matrices may be properly engaged and disengaged by the pawls. For these reasons, and to secure easy and uniform action of the parts, the mechanism shown in Figs. 5 and 6 is introduced between the finger-keys and escapements. The vertical rods C, which actuate the escapements, are guided in the main frame, and each is urged downward by a spring c. Each rod C terminates directly over one end of a rising and falling yoke-bar c2, turning on a pivot c3 at the opposite ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... not enquire too minutely into the cause which might actuate him in this instance: suffice it to say, he immediately put the plan in execution; and in three days from the time he first saw the unfortunate Lieutenant, he had the superlative felicity of seeing him at liberty, and receiving an ample reward in the tearful eye and half ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... institution, the acknowledgment is pregnant with an admission of the moral defensibility of Negro-servitude at the present moment. What then is meant by saying that the Slave was originally included in the Family? Not that his situation may not have been the fruit of the coarsest motives which can actuate man. The simple wish to use the bodily powers of another person as a means of ministering to one's own ease or pleasure is doubtless the foundation of Slavery, and as old as human nature. When we speak of the Slave as anciently included ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... great constitutional charter under which you are assembled, and which in defining your powers designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me to substitute in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications, I behold the surest pledges that as ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... was receiving it—I clenched my hands, and looked wildly round for something to destroy. I was in training to become a little tiger. From what I then experienced, I can easily conceive the feelings that actuate, and can half forgive the crowned monsters who have revelled in blood, and relished the inflicting of torture; as pandering to their worst passions in infancy resolves them into a terrible instrument of cruelty, the control of which rests ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... of a deliberate crime in the commission of perjury, we do not sufficiently reflect upon the difference of the religious principles which actuate Christians, and the heinous nature in their eyes of the sin of calling upon a God of purity to witness their falsehoods. If we could administer an oath to a native, the profanation of which would fill him with equal horror, we should find that he would speak the truth. A case in point occurred ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... king carte blanche, in a genealogical tree of his family, to rob and murder in circles of latitude and longitude abroad—to save the possessions of the Church at home. This appears in the speeches in Shakespeare, where the hidden motives that actuate princes and their advisers in war and policy are better laid open than in speeches from the throne or woolsack. Henry, because he did not know how to govern his own kingdom, determined to make war upon his neighbours. Because his own title to the crown was doubtful, he laid claim to that ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... there is a certain hardness in the manner of treating the character, which in some degree defeats the effect. Medea talks too much: her human feelings and superhuman power are not sufficiently blended. Taking into consideration the different impulses which actuate Medea and Lady Macbeth, as love, jealousy, and revenge on the one side, and ambition on the other, we expect to find more of female nature in the first than in the last: and yet the contrary is the fact: at least, my own ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... that can actuate an Authour in the dedication of his labours, concurs in directing me to you, as the person to whom the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... be established by adding to the transmitter and two receivers a Sieur phonic call, which will actuate them powerfully, and cause them to produce a noise loud enough for a call. It would be interesting to try this telephone on a city line, and to a great distance on those telegraph lines that are provided ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... noble impulses of Washington at the age of twenty-two, and such continued to actuate him throughout life. We have put the latter part of the quotation in italics, as applicable to the motives which in after life ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... once most dear. For nature has made no men in the world either friends or opponents to one another, but it is the actions of men in every case which, either by the similarity of the motives which actuate them unite them in alliance, or by the difference set them in hostility to each other, making them friends or enemies as the case may be. That, therefore, we are fighting against men who are outlaws and enemies of the state, ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius
... Pieces. Or perhaps in Pastoral most; since the Coolness and Sedateness of Pastoral is very apt to sate and tire the Reader, if he dwell's long on one Action; and we can bear a longer Description of a Battle than of two Shepherd's sitting together; because the first fill's and actuate's the Mind the most; and where it is so much employ'd, it cannot so ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... the beauty and romance which should by right, surround the function of sex-mating and which does surround a union that is pure and perfect. In this innate desire to share with the one and only possible mate, the intimate secrets of love, there is nothing of shame or apology—sentiments which alas, actuate the so-called "modest" man or woman ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... induce people as far as possible to formulate their accusations. This stupid kind of tittle-tattle is hateful to you, and you are anxious to put a stop to it as soon as possible. Am I right? Have I laid finger on the sentiments which actuate you? But you are not satisfied by turning your own brain, you want to do, or rather do, the same thing to my good Razoumikhin. Really, it is a pity to upset so good a fellow! His kindness exposes him more than anyone else to suffer contagion from your own malady. But you shall know ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... do, drive): (1) agent, agitate, agile, act, actor, actuate, exact, enact, reaction, counteract, transact, mitigate, navigate, prodigal, assay, essay; (2) agenda, pedagogue, synagogue, actuary, redact, castigate, litigation, exigency, ambiguous, variegated, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... be perceived that the ruling motives of my conduct, in my early childhood, towards my parents, were those of love and fear. Indeed these are the two great principles that actuate the holy inhabitants of heaven towards their Maker, whether they be saints ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... for any human being to behave with more kindness than the Marquess of Carabas did to Vivian Grey after that young gentleman's short conversation with Mrs. Felix Lorraine in the conservatory. The only feeling which seemed to actuate the Peer was an eager desire to compensate, by his present conduct, for any past misunderstanding, and he loaded his young friend with all possible favour. Still Vivian was about to quit Chateau Desir; and in spite of all that had ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... shewn a great willingness upon this occasion to be trained, and, I make not the least doubt, would oppose with vigour any invasion of the Americans—but how far the same sentiments would actuate them were a French force to join, I will not undertake to say; at any rate, I feel that every consideration of prudence and policy ought to determine me to keep in Quebec a sufficient force to secure its safety; the number of troops that could therefore ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... are very much in the minority, my dear," said Mrs. Livingston, smiling on Harriet. "Your forgiving spirit, however, is to be commended. It is the true spirit that should actuate a Wau-Wau Girl. In view of the previous vote, I shall have to impose a penalty that already had been agreed upon by the guardians in case the members of the camp decided upon some form of temporary punishment ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... to damage as the fiddle, and you never know into what studio your beloved one may go, or by whom it will be criticised. And apart from this latter consideration, pride in your own work and love of truth ought, and I hope will, actuate to noble effort; but mind, do not overrate what is done, in your pride of heart, for those into whose hands it will come later will assuredly ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... waste and wild entanglement. Excuse me if I am tedious on this point, for I feel solicitous to impress it upon you, being an error extremely prevalent in our country and one into which too many of our youth have fallen. I am happy, however, to observe the zeal which still appears to actuate you for the acquisition of knowledge, and augur every good from the elevated bent of your ambition. May I ask what has been your course of study for ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... as to induce them to remain peaceable spectators of enjoyments beyond their attainment, except that unaffected benevolence which shall continually actuate the heart to communicate all the happiness it has the power to bestow. This only can so temper oppression as to render gradual and ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... establishment intimately. I grant you that the idea was brilliantly carried out; but everything favoured it. As for the essential idea, I do not place it, as regards ingenuity, in the same class with, for example, the idea of utilizing the force of recoil in a discharged firearm to actuate the mechanism of ejecting and reloading. I do, however, admit, as I did at the outset, that in respect of details the case had unusual features. It developed ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... should have been successful but for the difficulty of making good mechanical connection between the recorder and the pulley. Backlash caused an unreliable record, and this arrangement had to be abandoned. The motion of the wire was then made to actuate the recorder through a hinged lever, and this arrangement holds, but days and even weeks have been lost in grappling the difficulties of adjustment between the limits of the tide and those of the recording drum; then when all seemed well we found that the floe ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... you to give advice?" demanded Henriette. "It is quite evident that you don't understand me. Do you suppose for an instant that I am robbing these people here in Newport merely for the vulgar purpose of acquiring money? If you do you have a woful misconception of the purposes which actuate ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... controversy obscures her vision, and she needs all her energies to tackle the great task which confronts her. In this regard nothing is so full of promise for the future as the new sense of unity which is beginning both to animate and actuate the whole teaching profession, from the University to the Kindergarten, and has already eventuated in the formation of a Teachers Registration Council, on which all sorts and conditions of ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... other side of the table, and the game was resumed. It was interesting to watch them gamble. Red Pearce had a scale at his end of the table, and he was always measuring and weighing out gold-dust. The value of the gold appeared to be fifteen dollars to the ounce, but the real value of money did not actuate the gamblers. They spilled the dust on the table and ground as if it were as common as sand. Still there did not seem to be any great quantity of gold in sight. Evidently these were not profitable times for the bandits. More than once Joan heard them speak of a gold strike ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... accustomed to follow, would have admitted slavery to be a great evil, unjust and indefensible in principle, and only to be vindicated by the stern necessity which was imposed upon us. Thus stimulated by every motive and passion which ordinarily actuate human beings—not as to a criminal enterprise, but as to something generous and heroic—what has been the result? A few imbecile and uncombined plots—in every instance detected before they broke out into action, and which perhaps if undetected would never have broken into action. One or two ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... which bears most resemblance to the true, the Courage of Citizenship, so named because the motives which are thought to actuate the members of a community in braving danger are the penalties and disgrace held out by the laws to cowardice, and the dignities conferred on the Brave; which is thought to be the reason why those are the bravest people among whom cowards are visited with ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... me, at the mass of the negroes, the lower majority of whom I have spoken; it comes from those who are hopeless of doing much for or with the negroes, who regard them as children, careless and unreliable, with different aspirations from those that actuate the white man. They say, "we must have a white man; no negro is fit to be ...
— Church work among the Negroes in the South - The Hale Memorial Sermon No. 2 • Robert Strange
... party with apostacy from their former principles. They observed that the very persons who in the late reigns endeavoured to abridge the prerogative, and deprive the king of that share of power which was absolutely necessary to actuate the machine of government, were now become advocates for maintaining a standing army in time of peace; nay, and impudently avowed, that their complaisance to the court in this particular was owing ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... regard to the atrocities of British soldiers contained in that letter are a tissue of falsehoods, and constitute an unfounded calumny which it would be difficult to parallel in the annals of warfare. It is difficult to conceive the motives that actuate the writer, but that they have been violent enough to make him absolutely reckless as to facts, ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... husband, solemnly, "you are hopeless—positively, undeniably, hopeless. I do not object to your failing to see the humor in the situation, for you are a woman; but that you should not be curious as to the motives which actuate Uncle Simon, that you should be unmoved by a burning desire to know why this staunch old servant who has for so many years pictured hell each Sunday to his fellow-servants should wish a vacation—that I ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Francisco. If these big objectives are set up in the schools of all countries pupils, teachers, and people will come to think in unison and thus their ways will converge and they will come to act in unison. The same high purposes will actuate and animate society as a whole and this, in turn, will make for a higher type of civilization and accelerate progress toward ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... Grace felt full of discomfort and distrust, a feeling shared by Alison, who had never forgiven herself for her half confidence, and felt that it would be wiser to tell the rest, but was withheld by knowing that her motive would actuate her sister to a contrary course. That Colin should detach himself from her, love again, and marry, was what Ermine schooled herself to think fitting; but Alison alternated between indignant jealousy for her sister, and the ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... relate the aim of education to the school activities of boys and girls, it is necessary to inquire concerning the ideals or purposes which actuate them in their regular school work. Ideals of service may be gradually developed, and may eventually come to control in some measure the activities of boys and girls, but these ideals do not normally develop in a school ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... James, who had enslaved it. His love to his country had engaged him in several plots to restore that prince, and with him, tyranny and idolatry, poverty and slavery."[35] Upon the odious principle of always seeking out for the lowest and the most selfish motive that can actuate the conduct of men,—a principle which is thought by weak and bad minds to display knowledge of the world, but which, in fact, more often betrays ignorance,—another part of his conduct was misjudged. The reluctance ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... what we do, or else what other way can we conceive in which divine aid and cooperation can act? Certainly we cannot suppose that the divine beings actually and literally turn our bodies and direct our hands and our feet this way or that, to do what is right: it is obvious that they must actuate the practical and elective element of our nature, by certain initial occasions, by images presented to the imagination, and thoughts suggested to the mind, such either as to excite it to, or avert and withhold ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... profligate of the literary men of antiquity. We possess but a small portion of his works, but the fragments which have come down to us show peculiar merit. He sought to penetrate the human heart, and to reveal the secret motives which actuate the conduct of men. The style of Sallust is brilliant, but his art is always apparent; he is clear and lively, but rhetorical. Like Voltaire, who inaugurated modern history, Sallust thought more of style than of accuracy as to facts. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... Prince of Wales, in a private character, to the people of this country has proved to be a most auspicious event. In its consequences it can not fail to increase the kindred and kindly feelings which I trust may ever actuate the Government and people of both countries in their political and social intercourse with ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... that state of society, not only unenlightened but sluggish, in which they are most generally established. Private industry, in those days, required strong provocatives, which governments were seeking to administer by these means. Something was wanted to actuate and stimulate men, and the prospects of such profits as would, in our times, excite unbounded competition, would hardly move the sloth of former ages. In some instances, no doubt, these laws produced ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... therefore, that in all nations the first ideas of religion arose not from a contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard to the events of life, and from the incessant hopes and fears which actuate the human mind." A century before him Hobbes had written in his terse way: "The natural seed of religion lies in these four things: the fear of spirits, ignorance of secondary causes, the conciliation of those we fear, and the assumption of accidents for omens."[81-1] The sentiment of religion ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... Europeans believe; what are the motives which actuate them; what they propose to themselves in disseminating their influence and establishing their dominion; what the real, openly-avowed purposes of the leaders are in the vast scheme which embraces the whole earth; ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... then ductile and pliant to all the motions of right reason; it met the dictates of a clarified understanding half way. And the active informations of the intellect, filling the passive reception of the will, like form closing with matter, grew actuate into a third and distinct perfection of practise; the understanding and will never disagreed; for the proposals of the one never thwarted the inclinations of the other. Yet neither did the will servilely attend upon the understanding, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... actuate my Lady, but if Amyas Belamour be the man I knew, and as the child's own letters paint him, he is not like to lend himself ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... paradoxical to assert not merely that ideas may exist in the mind without any consciousness of them, but that an idea, or a train of associated ideas, may be quickened into action and actuate movements without itself being attended to. When an idea disappears from consciousness it does not necessarily disappear entirely; it may remain latent below the horizon of consciousness. Moreover it may produce an effect upon movement, or upon other ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... crumpling the letters he held in his hand, "You know me enough," she continued, "or what I would say is, you yet recollect (do you not, Lord Alfred?) enough of my nature, to know That these pledges of what was perhaps long ago A foolish affection, I do not recall From those motives of prudence which actuate all Or most women when their love ceases. Indeed, If you have such a doubt, to dispel it I need But remind you that ten years these letters have rested Unreclaim'd in your hands." A reproach seem'd ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... up the labor unions as offering a model for the spirit which should actuate us or the methods we should follow—because their class-consciousness and the resulting conduct are sometimes extreme and often shortsighted, I would urge upon business men to cultivate and demonstrate but a little of that ...
— High Finance • Otto H. Kahn
... salutary humidity which lie beneath the satirical crust of his irony. He is primarily a satirist, dealing as he says with the vices of the human mind and the subterfuges of human self-deception. He lays bare "the sentiments and the movements of men, exposing the principles which actuate their malice and their frailty"; he aims at showing that such is the native evil implanted in their souls that "no one should any longer be surprised at the thousands of vicious or frivolous actions with which their lives are crowded." ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial, else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... several schemes in which it is lawful for Christians to take part, but, if we fail to win the strife for eternal life, we shall have lived in vain. To make life a success, the glory of God must be the ruling motive to actuate us in all the walks of life. If we do really glorify him in our lives, success will surely crown our efforts—everlasting life ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... nature are sometimes received with feelings as mixed as those which actuate them; and Mrs. Peniston remarked to her confidential maid that, if any of the family were to be with her at such a crisis (though for forty years she had been thought competent to see to the hanging of her own curtains), she would certainly have preferred Miss Grace ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... elements which have hitherto existed distinct and aloof from each other, will result in bringing true merit to the surface, in awakening our people to a loftier appreciation of the good and the true, thereby establishing a higher moral standard among us; that purer motives will henceforth actuate our society. The fears which are entertained by some that the present war will prove a severe shock to our civilization, are not sustained by the facts which are everywhere appearing around us. The frequent demands upon the generosity and forbearance of a great people, the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of the House, (who has bred up three Sons and three Daughters, who do Honour to her Education of them) I really think the penetrating into the Motives that actuate the Persons in a private Family, of much more general use to be known, than those concerning the Management of any Kingdom or Empire whatsoever: The latter, Princes, Governors, and Politicians only can be the better for, whilst every Parent, every Child, ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... Do not let that feeling actuate you. Answer me out of your heart, and however your heart may answer, remember this, that my friendship and support shall be the same. If you will take me for your husband, as your husband will I stand by you. If you cannot,—then I will stand by ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... in a position to take stock of Nature as a whole, of her nature, methods, and manner of working, of the motives which actuate her—of what, in short, she really is at heart. And having thus reviewed her, he will have to determine whether his wider and deeper knowledge of Nature confirms or detracts from the impression of her which he had gained from ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... Allcraft, pale as death, and much excited; "you must not go until you have satisfied me on a point of life and death to both of us. Your conduct is a mystery. I cannot explain it. I know not what are the motives which actuate you. These are known to yourself. Let them be so. But I have a question to ask, and you must ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... wish, and it was to spend his whole life with me; you parted us knowing that he could never love another woman as he loved me, knowing that you were destroying his life, even as you have destroyed mine. Did love for your son actuate ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... is well worth reading by those who wish to learn something of the motives which originally led the Southern States into rebellion, and still actuate them in their obstinate resistance. To any one familiar with the history of the last thirty years, it would almost seem that Mr. Pollard's object had been to expose the futility of the pretences set ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... body. Consequently the spirit of man acts into every part of the body, even the minutest, insomuch that if any part is not actuated by the spirit, or the spirit is not active in it, it does not live. Any one can see that this is true from this fact alone, that thought and will actuate all things and each thing of the body with such entire command that everything concurs, and any thing that does not concur is not a part of the body, but is cast out as something without life; and thought ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... surface easily after this tremendous effort at sincerity. Paul found that he could speak even of the family past, into which by degrees he began to fit the real man in place of that bucolic abstraction which had walked the fields of fancy. He had never dared to actuate the "hired man," his father, on a basis of fact. He knew the speech and manners of the class from which he came,—knew men of that class, and talked with them every summer at Stone Ridge; but he had brooded so deeply over the tragic and sentimental side of his father's fate as to have lost sight ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... determine always just what motives did actuate Commissioner Dole. They were not entirely above suspicion and his name is indissolubly connected with some very nefarious Indian transactions; but fortunately they have not to be recounted here. At the very time when he was offering unanswerable arguments against the propositions of ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... as I expect the Prince and his confessor at Rookchester, where I hope you will join us, we may perhaps find out the reasons which actuate that no doubt respectable person. In the meantime, as I would constrain nobody in matters of religion, I informed the Prince that he had my permission to—well, to plead his cause for himself ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... and which, in defining your powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications I behold the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... limited both in the extent and the duration of its power, and where the legislative power is exercised by an assembly which is inspired, by a supposed influence over the people, with an intrepid confidence in its own strength, which is sufficiently numerous to feel all the passions which actuate a multitude, yet not so numerous as to be incapable of pursuing the objects of its passions by means which reason prescribes, it is against the enterprising ambition of this department that the people ought to indulge all their jealousy ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... areopagy and dark tribunal of our hearts, surveys our thoughts, and condemns our obliquities. Happy is that state of vision that can see without light, though all should look as before the creation, when there was not an eye to see, or light to actuate a vision—wherein, notwithstanding, obscurity is only imaginable respectively unto eyes. For unto God there was none. Eternal light was for ever—created light was for the creation, not himself; and as He saw before the sun, He may ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... after I arrived here, I felt satisfied that the conflicts of party in the colony would ere long assume a new character. I perceived that the hostility to the proprietary interests, which was supposed to actuate certain classes of persons who had much influence with the peasantry, was on the decline. Should a state of quiescence prove incompatible with the maintenance of their hold on their flocks, analogy led me to anticipate that the Established Church would, in all ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... latter are more than balanced by the respectable Scotch, who emigrate occasionally upon the same principles which actuate the respectable portion of the English emigrants, and by the hardy Highlanders already settled in various parts of the colony, whose proverbial loyalty is proof against the arts ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... hear that I am crowded with visits. "Inopem me copia fecit." Visitors are no proper companions in the chamber of sickness. They come, when I could sleep or read, they stay till I am weary, they force me to attend, when my mind calls for relaxation, and to speak, when my powers will hardly actuate my tongue. The amusements and consolations of languor and depression are conferred by familiar and domestick companions, which can be visited or called at will, and can, occasionally, be quitted or dismissed, who do not obstruct accommodation ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... decried 'private' motives, which actuate all men—these universal natural instincts, which impel men yet more intensely, by the concentration of the larger sensibility, and the faculty of the nobler nature of their species, to seek their own private good,—even ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... this poem the record of his own experience. This has doubtless been the practice of many distinguished authors of fiction whose names will readily occur to the reader. Indeed, as we are never cognizant of the real motives which actuate others, it follows that nowhere can the secret springs of human action be studied to such advantage as within our own breasts. Thus romance is sometimes but the reflection of the writer's own individuality, and he adopts the counsel of ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin |
